Page 127 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

PART ONE: MESOPOTAMIA
• ^ m ^le ba<;k an arrow* At point the formal separation between, the two

stone s'" \ T ^and0ncd a‘ld’ furthcr («• on P^tc 105), the whole height of the
c seems to have been used with absolute freedom. As a result of this we gain an im-
presston o an increasing turmoil when we follow the battle from the left to its final
phase on the river bank.
Yet even here the division into registers is kept in the arrangement of the figures; the
imes of separation, although not carved in the stone, have evidently given the artist some
support in the composition of the battle-piece, and he has clearly marked them in the
disposition of his figures. We can best follow his scheme of work by starting at the bot­
tom. The mounted lancers would fit in the traditional frieze, like those of plate___
I02B.
Once we look at them with this in mind the upper edge of the register, which is, at the
same time, die ground line of the next strip, becomes clear. On the extreme left of plate
105 the actual ground line (see Plate 104) is just visible, and its continuation consists of a
number of prostrate bodies. Four dead Elamites, and one dying, are lined up, but the
existence of this aid to composition is cleverly camouflaged by the posture of the
wounded man and by the tree which overlaps die feet of the second and the headless
trunk of the third figure from the left. The hidden ground line divides, in fact, the entire
composition, for it is carried across the river by the alignment of a quiver, a fish, and a
dead horse floating on its back.
The upper limit of the second or middle register (of which we have traced the ground
line) is marked by the carcass of a horse. This strip is a little wider, and the upper part is
filled (as it was filled two centuries earlier, in Assurnasirpal’s reliefs) with the enemy
dead, on whom the vultures feed.
The discovery of the hidden supports of the draughtsman does not diminish one’s ad­
miration for his virtuosity. But not even he represents a coherent space, and it would,
therefore, be wrong to speak of‘cavalier perspective’,49 as it often done. This becomes
clear if we trace the overlappings of three figures standing near the water’s edge in the
middle register. In front of the small palm tree a soldier stoops to pick up an enemy s
bow, quiver, and helmet. His legs are drawn in front of an archer shooting at Elamites
afloat in the river; and the archer’s forward foot is, again, traced in front of a spearman
who would be standing in front of him if we read perspective into this scene. These dis-
crepancies show that we should not do so; even here the world of art is a world of its
own which represents but does not copy visual reality.
In earlier reigns the character of a pictorial chronicle was reinforced by the presence of
inscriptions on the raised bands which separated the registers of reliefs. The composition
of a single event over a number of strips which are, at most, separated by a ground line
called for another method of identifying figures and events. This is done by panels o
inscriptions which do not seriously interfere with the impression of a melee which this
relief conveys. By means of these labels some salient features of the engagement can be
dpsrribed In the upper left-hand comer of plate 105 a group of Assyrian oot-so ler
deSC,bvdn Teumman, the king of Susa, to a last stand. His son is hit by an arrow in the
^ J nd has fallen on his knee, begging for mercy. Teumman draws Ins bow for the
stomach a , . . pling under the shattering blows of an Assyrian s
last time. To the right he is seen crum
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